


pleasure reading

by CopperCaravan



Series: Flight [4]
Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, F/M, Fera Shepard, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-10
Updated: 2016-08-10
Packaged: 2018-08-07 23:02:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,396
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7733185
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CopperCaravan/pseuds/CopperCaravan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Part of the Flight AU. Jeff and Shepard read together. For about ten minutes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	pleasure reading

**Author's Note:**

> There's a bit that comes before this (obviously) but I'm not quite done with it atm, so I'll put it up (in the proper order) when it's done, but I don't have the patience to wait for that, so here's this.

She’s definitely doing it on purpose. Jeff’s been standing next to her for about three minutes and Shepard still hasn’t looked up from her book. She’s managed to take up the entire couch, despite her height. Her back’s propped up against one armrest and her legs are stretched out in front of her all the way to the other end. Truly a feat for her. When he clears his throat and she still pretends not to notice him, he huffs and hits her knee, knocking one of her legs off the couch. She only smirks.

“Fine then,” he says, and he drops into the space between her legs, leaning back against her chest.

He expects her to protest, at least a little, not because he’s bothering her but just because they like to poke at each other. He’s not expecting her to shift underneath him, sink comfortably down into the cushion, and continue reading with her chin propped on his shoulder. Kind of a nice surprise.

“What’re you reading?”

“Wuthering Heights,” she says, without hesitation or shame, and he sighs. She reads that damn book at least once a year. Hell, she really ought to have every single word memorized by now; why bother reading it at all?

“I hate that book.” He lets his head fall back against her shoulder and his hat gets knocked forward over his eyes. All the better, honestly.

“I know.” And then she snakes an arm around his waist, like he’s going to try to escape. (It _was_ a possibility, but then again, he is very comfortable.)

He allows her a few pages in silence, listening for the rustling of paper, feeling for the shift of muscle against his side. She draws circles above his hip with her free hand and he could pretty well just fall asleep here. This is probably the quietest they’ve ever been together, discounting sleeping. It’s nice.

He can’t let it last.

“You know, it’s not even a good book. I mean, seriously, it’s awful. The people are awful, the story is awful, the—”

She laughs. “We all have our vices, Jeff.” He’s not sure if she means her vice (crappy taste in romance novels, if you ask him) or the many, many vices _within_ the book. She flips another page and rubs her cheek against his, the stubble of his beard creating just a little bit of friction. She’s being... really domestic today. It’s weird. It’s still nice—lounging on the couch with her wrapped around him, her fingers tracing circles on his skin, the quiet of it—but it’s very different from their usual playful bickering, very different from the teasing and snark and (relatively) rough affection. It’s a gentleness he hadn’t expected from either of them—her because after all these years, he’s never seen her act quite like this, certainly not with him. And him because... well, when people are “gentle” with him, it’s just different. And very unpleasant. And fake. He stopped trying to do _gentle_ with people a very long time ago.

Suddenly his insecurity is piping up in the back of his mind and he wonders if all her other relationships have been like this—soft and quiet and sweet. He wonders if it’s only ever been _him_ that’s been standing in the way of moments like this.

So he fights the urge to make another comment about how ridiculous Wuthering Heights is.

“Here. Give it here.” And she does (another surprise). “Where were you?”

She points, drags her finger along a couple of words, and then busies herself with removing his hat.

“I had just fastened our pinafores together,” he reads, “and hung them up for a curtain, when in comes Joseph on an errand from the stables. He tears down my handiwork—”

With one of Shepard’s hands still making those lazy circles around the jut of his hip and her other hand now running through his hair, he’s a bit distracted—not like the book’s all that interesting to begin with either.

He coughs and starts that last bit over, not-so-subtly pressing his head back into her hand. “He tears down my handiwork, boxes my ears, and croaks: ‘T’ Mai—my—maister nobbut just buried, and Sabbath nut o—oe’red, und... t’ sah—sand?’”

Jeff rubs one of his eyes with his thumb. How the hell can she even read this? “‘T’ sahnd uh’t gospel still i’ yer—Shepard, what the shit does this say?”

She laughs and runs her fingers along his scalp, down the nape of his neck. “You’re butchering Joseph’s accent,” she says, lips at his ear.

He shuts his eyes and leans into her hand and sighs. “Yeah, I think the butchering happened way before I got _my_ hands on this.” He draws his lips into as exaggerated a scowl as he can manage. “T’ sahnd uh’t gospel, Shepard! Shame!”

She laughs again, actually snorts this time. “Want me to take over?”

“And give up being pampered? No. I got it.” He’s just gonna skip over this ‘Joseph’ guy. Far as he remembers from what Shepard’s told him, nobody in the book cares about what the guy has to say either, so no great loss. It’s practically a literary commentary.

“Saying this,” he continues, picking up right where Joseph stops talking, “he compelled us to square our positions that we might receive, from the far-off fire, a dull ray to show us the text of the lumber he thrust upon us.” He’s really putting in the effort here to keep up this... whatever it is that they’re doing, but he’s about to lose all restraint. This book is boring. How Shepard can actually read this every single year and not come to that conclusion is beyond him.

He opens his mouth to tell her so, but either she’s got really interesting timing or she’s just a troublemaker (he’s betting the latter) because she starts pressing kisses into the side of his neck, so of course _your book sucks_ isn’t the sound he makes. “Uh.”

“Had to occupy myself somehow,” she says, lips and hands still moving against him. “Unless it’s _distracting_ you from your literary pursuits.”

“Cute.” Still, he doesn’t quite mean to turn his face toward her when she pauses, or to lean into her for more.

Only one peck on the check and she’s smirking like the devil she is. “I believe you were reading to me, Jeff.”

“Yeah, yeah. Hint taken.” She twists his hair around her fingers and he shifts a little, settles back into her, and finds his place. “I could not bear the employment. I took my dingy volume by the scroop—what the hell’s a _scroop,_ Shepard?” She doesn’t answer, just stops moving, stays close enough for him to feel her smiling, and he rolls his eyes.

“—and hurled it into the dog kennel, vowing I hated a good book.” Shepard kisses him while he reads, and with her so close and at least a dozen things he’d rather be doing with her, he can’t help but agree with the sentiment. “Heathcliff—oh, I remember this guy, _ugh_ —Heathcliff kicked his to the same place.”

Shepard starts nipping along the shell of his ear and for fuck’s sake if she wants him to focus on the damn book... He makes a very deliberate effort to concentrate on the words and as he reads the next line, he can’t help but laugh. “Then there was a hubbub!”

He shuts the book with a weirdly satisfying clap, and tosses the damn thing away from the couch.

“Jeff!”

He turns himself carefully around to face her and when she realizes what he’s doing, she shifts a little to accommodate him, but she’s still wearing that ridiculous _I can’t believe you threw my book_ expression (and he can’t imagine why; anybody who’s read that thing as much as she has would probably throw it too).

“Sorry, Shepard, just following their example.” He cups her jaw with both hands, pushing his fingers up into her hair, and she doesn’t bat him away. “Insult book.”

She grins, already having caught on, and says, “ _Throw_ book?”

“Mhm.” He leans in, kisses her, lets his mind linger on the way her hands feel, sliding around his neck. “And cause a hubbub.”

Maybe they can read together again later. Much later. Better book, though.

**Author's Note:**

> Quotes are from Bronte's Wuthering Heights (public domain).


End file.
